Campaign Design creates Kirk Originals store

Campaign creative director Philip Handford says the consultancy was brought on to the project by forecasting group the Future Laboratory.

Handford says Kirk Originals owners Jason and Karen Kirk have a ‘distinctive and flamboyant approach’ to their brand and wanted to translate this to an ‘instantly recognisable’ design which would challenge the ‘white box’ approach to optician design.

‘How the design of a store reflects the way we feel when we wear frames’ was a crucial question in formulating the design, Handford says.

The ‘concept of audience’ has been applied throughout the store by making customers feel they are being observed, according to Handford.

Aluminium powder-coated interventions have been designed into the space, including what Handford calls ‘winkies’ – lenticular eyes which sit behind a pair of glasses and follow customers around the room. They comprise an abstract ‘head’ which rests on adjustable legs.

Lenticular printing creates the illusion of animation by combining at least two overlaid images with a lenticular lens.

At the back of the shop a kaleidoscopic projection of the identity features, backdropped by an ‘inky’ colour which pervades the space as an antithesis to the ‘white clinical look’ of opticians and glasses stores, says Handford.